Iam 25 year old male for the last or so i have had a problem

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Hi iam 25 year old male for the last or so i have had a problem i dont know what it is i have learnt to deal with it but lately seems to be getting so much worse i noticed recently that the bubbly outgoing person in me is gone i feel sad quite often and have a really hard time sleeping then some times i feel i could sleep for days as everything feels so hard and the harder i try the harder it gets i dont feel like eating i am really good at my profession and always end up being someone who becomes highly depended upon and i just dont cope any more i am not someone who wants to hurt myself i want this to go away i dont know what to do though please help.Yours Andrew

Part of the problem is that your are probably suffering from mixed anxiety and depression - depression is causing you to feel bad, and the other part is that your negative thinking about your life situation is just adding to that.

Both these things can be dealt with by a combination of proper medication and a course of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It is a form of therapy that addresses problems in a direct and targeted way and is brief compared with most other therapies.

The first thing you need to do is to see your Doctor – he will give you a full diagnosis and if appropriate, start you on a suitable anti-depressant medication.

Two important issues about this - when you are on medication, you must take it at the correct dose and as prescribed. It is no use missing doses or messing around with the dose.

Secondly, you should know that anti-depressants can take up to 8 weeks from the start of therapy before they begin to show beneficial effects, so it's no use quitting after two weeks.

CBT is based on the fact that what we think in any given situation generates beliefs about, and reactions to that situation, and also cause the behaviour and feelings which flow from those beliefs and reactions.

These ‘automatic thoughts’ are so fast that generally, we are unaware that we have even had them. We call them ANTS (automatic negative thoughts) for short.

If the pattern of thinking we use, or our beliefs about our situation are even slightly distorted,

the resulting emotions and actions that flow from them can be extremely negative and unhelpful. The object of CBT is to identify these ‘automatic thoughts’ then to re-adjust our thoughts and beliefs so that they are entirely realistic and correspond to the realities of our lives, and that therefore, the resulting emotions, feelings and actions we have will be more useful and helpful.

Cognitive therapists do not usually interpret or seek for unconscious motivations but bring cognitions and beliefs into the current focus of attention and through guided discovery encourage clients to gently re-evaluate their thinking.

Therapy is not seen as something “done to” the client. CBT is not about trying to prove a client wrong and the therapist right, or getting into unhelpful debates. Through collaboration, questioning and re-evaluating their views, clients come to see for themselves that there are alternatives and that they can change.

Clients try things out in between therapy sessions, putting what has been learned into practice, learning how therapy translates into real life improvement.